


A Demon & His Duck: The Marvelous Misadventures of Freddie Duckury

by WriteItOtt, Yvesriba



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: "Retirement" Is Hard on Crowley, Asexual Aziraphale (Good Omens), Asexual Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale and Crowley in Love (Good Omens), Aziraphale's Bookshop (Good Omens), Domestic Fluff, Don't copy to another site, Ducks, Family Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Found Family, Freddie Duckury, He/Him Pronouns For Aziraphale (Good Omens), He/Him Pronouns For Crowley (Good Omens), Illustrated by LGBTQ artist, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), LGBTQ Themes, Multi, Post-Canon, Written by LGBTQ Writer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:26:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27882214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WriteItOtt/pseuds/WriteItOtt, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yvesriba/pseuds/Yvesriba
Summary: A sweet and fluffy post-canon exploration of Crowley and Aziraphale’s life after Armageddon’t, their adjustment to being their own bosses, and embracing each other as the life-long partners they’ve always been. Familiar characters and original characters are loving members of the Ineffables’ found-family and wind their way through the Angel’s and Demon’s lives in often-unexpected ways.But when Crowley and Aziraphale adopt an orphaned duckling from St. James’ Park and decide to raise it together… marvelous misadventures abound!How much trouble could one duckling be?
Relationships: Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Sergeant Shadwell/Madame Tracy (Good Omens), Warlock Dowling & The Them (Good Omens)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 28





	1. Crowley Needs A Job

**Author's Note:**

> Freddie the Duck is planned to be an on-going serial with no planned ending in sight and many chapters written and outlined going forward, so toss your ideas along with your kudos down in the comments, loves!
> 
> We had so much fun brain-storming this little brain weasel and hope you find our take on what happens after the Armageddon-that-Couldn't as fun to read as we do to write.
> 
> So, with no further ado... let's get a wiggle on, shall we? ;)

“Angel.”

A pause, only the sound of a fountain pen scratching against the accounts book from across the room any indication that the angel being sought was indeed in the bookshop.

“Annnnggelllll…” Perhaps the sing-song voice would get his attention, Crowley thought. Unfortunately, the pen scratching away was still the only response the demon received.

Clearly, drastic measures were called for.

“Angel. _Angel_. Angel! Aziraphale. Annngellll… Aziraphale! **Principality**. Guardian of the Eastern Gate? The best Heaven ever had or will ever hope to churn out? **AZIRAPHALE**!”

“Oh, for Somebody’s sake! What is it, you utter _menace_?” Aziraphale spun around in his desk chair with a distinctly displeased huff, glaring at the demon sprawled artlessly across the couch.

“I’m **boreddddd** ,” Crowley whined. Somehow, Aziraphale didn’t fail to note, the demon managed to sigh with his entire body. ( Although in hindsight he decided it probably had something to do with it being only for dramatic effect.)

“Are you almost done?”

The blond’s platinum brows lowered and creased into a look of disbelief and more than a smidge of annoyance. He carefully capped his antique fountain pen and placed it deliberately down on the accounts he was working on before slowly lowering his tiny half-moon spectacles and fixing the sprawling ginger on his couch with a stormy gaze.

Crowley’s _gulp_ echoed in the cavernous shop.

“Crowley… did you _honestly_ just interrupt me doing the accounts for my _business_ merely to tell me you are _bored_?” The tightness in the angel’s voice and the storm clouds in his eyes telegraphed just how thoroughly annoyed Aziraphale was, particularly because he clearly already knew the answer to the question.

“Um…” the demon cleared his suddenly-too-tight throat, staring frozen under Aziraphale’s steely gaze. “I, uh. Mmmyeah… _ngk_. I guess so, Angel…” he finally spat out.

The bookseller closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration, giving himself a moment to gather a hold on his anger. Retirement had meant very few changes for Aziraphale, overall, but obviously it had had more of an effect on Crowley than either of them had realized until quite recently. It wasn’t really fair of the angel to be upset with his friend for not knowing what to do with himself now that he wasn’t strictly employed as a demon anymore, but that hardly made his disrupting shenanigans any less obnoxious, especially when Aziraphale was trying to do maths and tidy his accounts. While the angel had a business (oh, alright, a _collection_ ) to throw himself into and occupy his time with… Crowley had a sparse and sterile flat with a throne and plants that were terrified of him. The realization quickly sobered Aziraphale’s anger and left him in a much more charitable mood towards the demon on his sofa.

The angel took a deep breath before he opened his eyes and got up from his desk, motioning for Crowley to lift his gangly legs up so Aziraphale could sit next to him on the settee. Crowley obliged him, still wide-eyed and unsure of what kind of mood he had pushed his friend into. Thankfully, Aziraphale didn’t keep him wondering for long.

“Crowley, my dear heart… I am sorry I got snappish with you,” he said as he sat, pulling Crowley’s legs back down to rest across his lap. “Let’s talk about this and try to work through it, okay?”

The ginger demon relaxed at Aziraphale’s apology and shook his head. “No, I’m sorry for being a pest, Angel,” he answered. “I’m just… I’m just so bloody **bored** anymore! I don’t _mean_ to be in your way or - or _annoying_ you… I just -”  
  
“Need an outlet, now that you’re not _required_ to cause chaos anymore?” Aziraphale finished with a tender smile. “My dear, I understand, really I do. Retirement, as it were, has been much easier on me than it has been for you, am I right?” When Crowley nodded sheepishly, he continued, rubbing soothing circles across the demon’s legs as they talked. “I’m sorry, Crowley. I should have seen this sooner.” 

“No, no, it’s not your fault, Angel, really,” Crowley insisted. “I… This open communication thing between us is still… weird and new - but a good weird! - and I should have just come to you to begin with. When it first started to get to me, I mean. Instead of just, I dunno… being a menace to you…” he finished, finally meeting Aziraphale’s eyes. He hated knowing that he was the reason his angel was upset, he hated being an annoyance to the one being who consistently showed him kindness and affection, but most of all, Crowley hated feeling so vulnerable and **seen** , even if it was Aziraphale. Or maybe it was _because_ it was Aziraphale. He didn’t know. He just knew that he didn’t know what to do with himself and felt just awful for making the blond upset.

As if the angel could read his mind and could see the trusty old self-loathing brewing there, Aziraphale gently rapped Crowley’s shins with his knuckles to snap him out of his melancholy and fixed the demon with a piercing blue gaze. “That will be enough of those thoughts, dearest,” he scolded him with a knowing smile. “This ‘arrangement’ is new and new things are scary, especially to beings as old and set in our ways as we both have been accustomed! It’s okay to feel adrift or not know what to do with oneself; that is why we have each other. And that is why I wish I had noticed your struggle sooner. Not because you are weak or an annoyance or a menace or whatever else you may tell yourself or anything else I said in anger. But because I _want_ to be there for you, Crowley. It’s one thing to drink and go out to eat and have fun with you, but I want to be there for you in the not-so-fun times too, my dearest friend. That’s what friendship is for. For the good times, yes, but most especially for the bad times too. I care deeply for and about you and I want nothing more than to be there for you in all the ways you have, throughout history, been there for me as well.”

Crowley stared into Aziraphale’s deep blue eyes like he was drowning and the only rescue that would come to save him was in their depths. Emotions warred within the demon as he listened to his best friend’s words, creating a living art gallery of micro-expressions across his angular features until his mind finally settled on ‘loving awe’. His amber, slitted eyes became liquid gold as they suffused with tears of both relief and joy and Crowley paused for only a few heartbeats before he surged up, folding himself in half to wrap his arms around Aziraphale’s neck in a constrictor-tight hug and burying his face in the blond’s neck as tears began to slip down his face. Even caught off-guard by the sudden, uncharacteristic display of emotion by his ginger counterpart, Aziraphale’s arms wrapped around Crowley’s lanky frame only a moment later.

“I love you, Angel. You’re too good to me,” he murmured, his words almost indecipherable against his angel’s starched collar.

“Oh, my dearest… no,” the blond shushed him and pressed a tender kiss to the dark auburn locks tucked tightly under his chin. “I love you too. Every word of what I said is true, Crowley. You deserve for me to support you as well as you have supported me for all these years, and I intend to do so. You are deserving of all the most wonderful things life has to offer two immortal beings and I am honored to get to be the one to ensure you get them. So there,” Aziraphale added and stuck his tongue out adorably, trying and succeeding in getting Crowley to giggle through his emotional overwhelm.

“You’re such a little shit, Angel,” Crowley chuckled as he finally released his near-stranglehold on Aziraphale and sat back.

“You wouldn’t have me any other way, my heart,” Aziraphale grinned as they both settled back in their seats. “Now, circling back a wee bit… I have a suggestion for how you can help yourself come to terms with our retirement, my dear.”

“Oh? What’s that, Angel?”

“I think that you should get a new job!” he announced smartly. Crowley could tell he thought it was a rather intelligent suggestion by the delighted little wiggle the blond gave after the announcement, but had to admit he was skeptical and more than a bit confused.

“You _wot_? A new job? Uhh… can you, I dunno, elaborate a little there, Angel?”

“Think about it, Crowley. We both essentially just got our walking papers from jobs that we’ve held for 6000 years. Only I already had something to fill my time with with the bookshop so I wasn’t as affected by sudden freedom as you were! Now you’re bored and have no earthly idea what to do with yourself because you’ve never had the _liberty_ of knowing what to do with yourself because you’ve always been _told_ exactly what to do with yourself by your former employer!” Aziraphale proclaimed all in a rush, wiggling again at his flawless, if roundabout, logic.

“So by finding a new job - one that’s my choice and fits me better than the old one - I solve the problem of being bored and give myself an outlet to find the niche I never had the chance to find before, yeah?” Crowley worked out once Aziraphale explained himself better. “You know… I think you’re actually onto something, Angel. I… really can’t come up with an argument against that…”

Aziraphale tutted, fixing Crowley with a haughty expression that barely contained his playful excitement at solving his partner’s problem. “Tsk… as if you didn’t know I was right to begin with, dear,” he teased, his eyes glinting with mischief.

“Oh, of _course_ I did, Angel; how could I ever have doubted one of your hare-brained ideas?” Crowley quipped back, sarcasm palpable between them.

“Hare-brained?!” the angel gasped. “Name _one_ time - oh. Oh, nevermind,” he huffed, pursing his lips into the cutest pout Crowley had seen to date when he realized the demon was right.

Crowley let out a bark of laughter and kissed Aziraphale’s plump and rosy cheek affectionately. “You set a helluva precedent for hare-brained ideas, Angel-mine,” he teased. “All the way back to Eden when you gave that flaming sword away, flirted with a demon, and gave him shelter from the first rain all in the space of a few hours…”

Aziraphale managed to hold his huffy expression for all of exactly 3.7 seconds until Crowley kissed his cheek and his pout melted into a loving grin instead. “I did set the bar pretty highly, didn’t I?” he chuckled, cheeks pinking adorably.

“Oh, Angel… you should collect royalties whenever anyone else has a hare-brained idea.” Crowley laughed again when Aziraphale smacked his arm playfully, both of them relaxing back into the couch when the blond pulled Crowley fully into his lap and tucked his head under his chin for a good snuggle. Companionable silence stretched between them for an untold length of time (for what is time to immortals, anyhow?) before Aziraphale spoke up again.

“Have you any ideas for what you might want in a job, my darling?” he asked, not pausing in the gentle stroking of his partner’s auburn hair.

“Mmmph?” It took Crowley a moment to reel his mind back in from the contented half-nap the petting had lulled him into. “Oh, uh, yeah actually; I think I do. Um. I think I wanna learn to garden. The human way, I mean. No miracles or magic to smooth over anything I don’t know or any mistakes I make. I like the idea of actually having a trade, you know? The way you do here at the shop. And I enjoy my plants, well, all plants really and animals too… and it would get me out of the flat and out of the bookshop and I think it would help with the ‘drifting about with no idea where to go or what to do’ feeling, yeah? So, um… I think I’m gonna apply to the Royal Parks Apprenticeship?”

Aziraphale blinked a few times when Crowley finished his rambling explanation. He hadn’t really expected Crowley to have such a well-thought out plan in such a relatively short span of time, but his surprise only lasted a few moments before a delighted grin split his cherubic face. “Oh, Crowley, I think that’s a brilliant idea!” he exclaimed, gifting the demon with another full-body wiggle.

Crowley’s lanky form relaxed with the breath he had unconsciously been holding and he eagerly picked up his ramble where he had left off for the angel’s opinion. “I’ve read up on it before,” he admitted, a little sheepish. “The program is like a university course on parks management with hands-on horticulturist training under the master horticulturists of the Royal Parks Guild, and I would graduate the apprenticeship with a certification and a decent chance at being hired on, if I do well enough. Which, I think I will? I mean, it’s something I already enjoy doing, even if I use some tools that humans don’t have in their tool sheds, so to speak. But that’s what I mean too; I wanna learn how _they_ do it! Just look at St. James’ Park. It’s bloody gorgeous and they do it all by hand, no magic! I just think… I just think it’d be really satisfying to know exactly how to grow things that beautiful with nothing but my own two hands and my own knowledge, you know?” the ginger finished a bit shyly, realizing he had rambled for a good five minutes.

“My love, I am so proud of you,” Aziraphale praised him, a beatific smile on his round face as he gazed at Crowley in awe. “I think that’s a truly _wonderful_ idea, and what’s more, I _know_ it’s a wonderful idea because of how excited you are at the prospect. I haven’t seen you this happy in… well, longer than I like,” he added.

Crowley felt the heat of a deep blush color his face and ears at Aziraphale’s earnest praise and hugged the angel tighter for several moments until the worst of the embarrassment faded. “Thank you, Angel,” he murmured, kissing his cheek again tenderly.

“Of course, my darling,” the blond whispered into Crowley’s hair. When the demon sat up and loosened his hold a bit, Aziraphale grinned and stood up as a sudden idea struck him, holding Crowley in a bridal carry as if he weighed no more than air. He studiously ignored the undignified yelp and the frantic scrambling of the demon in his arms, trying to afford the ginger at least **some** dignity as he strode purposefully toward the front door of the shop.

“What the bloody Heav- He- **somewhere** are you doing, Aziraphale?!” he yelped, clinging to the angel’s neck.

“We’re going to celebrate, my dear! I’m taking you to the Ritz, of course,” the angel said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “To celebrate your breakthrough and your impending career!”

Crowley beamed at him and laughed brightly. “Are you planning on carrying me the whole way?” he teased, “Or can I drive us, Angel?”

*************

Three weeks later, Crowley found himself enrolled, accepted, and rather excitedly working in St. James’ Park for the first week "in the field" of his apprenticeship.

He had instantly liked the Master Gardener he had been assigned to apprentice under and was surprised to find himself very much looking forward to more of zir instruction. Alban was comfortably into middle-age and wore it well with a plait of silver-white hair down zir back which ze often tucked into the back of zir toolbelt to keep out of the way while ze worked and possessed one of the most intimidating stares Crowley had ever encountered, angels and demons included. Zir eyes were a murky shade of green-leaning hazel that reminded the demon of stagnant water (or Hastur's toad...) when he had first met zir in the classroom, but outdoors in the sunshine the golden flecks surrounding the murky irises popped like gold leaf gilding on an old leather-bound tome. Crowley had heard some of the more senior apprentices whispering about Alban’s legendary glares and after seeing those golden-green eyes of zirs flash like an archangel’s weapon when a new student interrupted zir lecture... he could totally understand why students both respected and feared the older gardener.

Crowley smiled to himself as he walked to his next work area. Part of the park grounds had been closed for the week to give the new apprentices an out-of-the-way space to work in where the Master Gardeners could assess their skill levels without the public distracting anyone, so the shaded path was rather pleasant, he noted. Today he was to weed the overgrown far side of the pond from the water’s edge up to the paved pathway while minding and taking note of any wildlife he found, such as birds’ nests, mink and weasel dens, and the like. It was the first day Crowley had been sent off on a solo job so far and, while he was enjoying the program and had been friendly with most of his fellow apprentices, the ginger was looking forward to a bit of peace and quiet while he worked today.

Something lying next to the pathway up ahead caught his attention and broke Crowley’s reverie. A lump formed in his throat and tears pricked at his eyes as he realized it was a duck and he approached the poor thing with a sigh, putting his toolbox down on the path and pulling out his notebook to mark the spot for the animal crew to handle after he was finished. His eyes flicked up and searched the weeds at the water’s edge at the sound of rustling there, quickly honing in on the culprit: a mink.

“Little murderer…” he grumbled at the small predator. A tendril of demonic energy gathered on the tip of his finger ready to startle the little brown killer, but Crowley stopped in his tracks and felt his stomach drop when he realized what the mink was rummaging around in.

“Oh, no you don’t… Fuck off, ya fuzzy wanker! You don’t get the eggs too!” he hissed and melted smoothly to the ground in a coil of enraged, demonic snake. Crowley darted into the grass and swallowed the unfortunate mink in one vengeful chomp. _'Sometimes it was nice to be a demonic snake,'_ he thought as he willed his snake anatomy to digest the impromptu meal much more quickly than any mortal serpent ever could have.

Once back in his human form he knelt next to the remains of the nest and examined it sadly. Clearly the mother duck had been ambushed by the predator while brooding her eggs, judging by the feathers strewn about and the blood from what looked like a valiant effort at defending her young. Crowley searched through the twigs and feathers, not surprised but still saddened to find the eggs mostly destroyed along with the nest itself. A few tears slipped off the end of the demon’s nose and dripped onto the scene in front of him, drawing his attention to a single intact egg tucked under a few feathers and leaves kicked up by the mink and Crowley’s own coils.

Crowley carefully reached out and held his breath as he used his occult senses to feel for living energy inside the eggshell. His heart soared and then swiftly froze as he realized that, even left intact and still alive, the poor little egg would never have a chance without its mother to warm it and take care of the hatchling once or even _if_ it ever hatched. _'God really had a sick sense of humor sometimes,'_ he thought bitterly as he swiped the tears off his face with the back of his hand, still cradling the small egg in the other.

He stared down at the egg. It was an unusual color compared to the other duck eggs he had seen over the years; did duck eggs change color when they were cooked? Maybe that was the reason this one was such a deep grey-ish black, Crowley mused. His large palm curled slightly to cradle the egg more securely and offer more warmth to the little orphan inside the matte black shell. It was just the cycle of life. Predators eat prey, life sustains life; there was no malicious intent on the part of either one, it was just nature. Things eat other things and sometimes things like this happen and there was just nothing to be done about it…

“You’re putting me in a rough spot here, kiddo,” Crowley grumbled to the egg. He turned the little black oval in his palm carefully. “It’s nothing personal, you know. Nature, survival of the fittest and all that. You got dealt a bad hand, kid, that’s all…” 

_‘Just like me,’_ he thought abruptly, startling himself. But it was enough to make his mind up, at any rate.

“ _Aarrghh_ … alright, alright! You win! Are you happy now?” the demon groused and glared at the egg.

He quickly used his teeth to pull off the glove not cradling the duck egg and snapped his fingers once they were free. A small, state-of-the-art, single-egg incubator set at the perfect temperature for whatever-breed-of-duck-egg appeared next to the demon, who tenderly settled the duck-to-be in the soft and warm interior with a heavy sigh. He snapped again to clean up any evidence of a large non-native snake around the destroyed nest and sent a text to Alban to let zir know he would be leaving early due to a family emergency, but that he had just finished cleaning up his assigned area. With a third snap, the area on the water side of the pathway was taken care of and Crowley’s paperwork was completed and filed in the park office with Alban’s assistant who most definitely remembered talking to the tall red-headed gent when he turned them in.

“Welcome to the family, kid,” Crowley murmured, hoisting the incubator under one arm carefully. He snapped once more, taking himself and the tiny, no-longer-orphaned ducky back to Soho to face Aziraphale.


	2. An Angel Meets An Egg

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having rescued an orphaned duck egg while working his new apprenticeship, Crowley explains to Aziraphale what he's done and the Ineffables dive into research and some long-kept secrets come to light...

Despite the absolutely lovely sunny weather Aziraphale had forgone his usual favorite sunny day pastime of reading under the grand skylight in his second floor reading nook in favor of meeting his friend Helen for lunch at the neighborhood cafe just up the block instead. Helen owned the flower shop just around the block from the bookshop and Aziraphale had become quite friendly with her and her wife Meg in recent years. They had a standing lunch date with each other once a week to catch up, vent about business owning, and indulge in a bit of gossip about the rest of the neighborhood, although the day they met typically changed from week-to-week according to their schedules.

Today Aziraphale and Helen were lingering over a cup of tea and enjoying the early afternoon sunshine, neither business-owner quite ready to return from lunch just yet.

“So how is Anthony enjoying the apprenticeship?” Helen asked.

“Oh, he’s absolutely in love with it so far! The Master Gardener he was assigned to seems to be a good compliment for him, if a bit gruff at times, but he hasn’t found anything to really take umbrage to with zir yet,” Aziraphale added with a cheeky grin.

“That’s great! Meg and I were so proud of him when he told us he had been accepted. We prayed - oh, alright; **I** prayed, you cheeky bastard - that he would get someone he got on with at least,” Helen corrected herself with a wry grin when Aziraphale raised a brow at the implication that Meg had prayed about anything. Meg and Aziraphale had had many friendly arguments over her steadfast atheism, especially after the two women had found out about Aziraphale and Crowley’s supernatural natures.

The angel giggled at her correction and nodded with the woman’s sentiment. “Yes, I was terribly concerned that Crowley would wind up apprenticing to someone he couldn’t stand. I’m so glad he seems to like Master Alban.”

“And that Master Alban seems to like him,” Helen teased in return.

“Yes, quite,” the angel agreed, reaching for his wallet in order to pay the check when their usual waitress brought it out to them. He frowned at his friend when she made to grab the check out from under his hand. “Now, my dear; it’s my turn. Let’s not have this fight _again_.”

“It is not! You took care of the check last week, Aziraphale!” she argued with him, glaring just as sternly back at him.

“I did n- oh, bother. You’re right,” he conceded after a moment, withdrawing his hand from the bill with a playful scowl.

Helen laughed and took care of the bill, sticking her tongue out at his scowl. “Aww, don’t feel bad, love; I’m sure even angels aren’t _perfect_ ,” she teased, standing to shrug her cardigan back on.

“The cheek!” Aziraphale laughed and embraced the older woman fondly. As he did every time they met, the angel tapped into his ethereal powers of healing to ensure the human woman was still in excellent health. Satisfied that nothing had changed or needed his healing attention, Aziraphale withdrew his power from her and stepped back from their hug with a brief blessing. He knew it was inevitable for the woman and her wife to age and leave Crowley and him, but Aziraphale saw no reason now not to prolong what little time they had together by keeping a weather eye on the pair’s health for them. Meg and Helen were both well into middle-age for humans, after all.

“You know, love, you don’t need to keep doing that,” Helen chided him with a gentle smile. “I see my doctor regularly for check-ups and so does Meg.”

“Yes, but it makes me feel better to see it firsthand and -”

“And you know more about healing than a human doctor by leaps and bounds,” Helen finished the familiar statement for him with a fond laugh. “If it makes you feel better, by all means; you have our permissions. I’m just saying, we _do_ take care of ourselves.”

“I know, my dear, I know. And I’m glad you don’t mind an angelic check-up,” the angel smiled at her and pressed a soft kiss to her cheek as she did the same to him.

With fond smiles and reassurances to give their respective partners each other’s love, Aziraphale meandered around the block back to the bookshop. When he turned the corner and his home came into view the angel was more than a little surprised to find his horticulturally-inclined demon rounding the other end of the same block. Both entities stopped in their tracks when their eyes landed on the other and both auburn and platinum brows knitted in confusion as they approached each other, meeting in front of the bookshop’s door.

“Crowley, is everything alright? Why aren’t you at work?” Aziraphale asked him.

“I could ask you the same thing, Angel.”

“You know I meet Helen for lunch every week, silly serpent,” the blond replied. “But that still doesn’t account for yourself.”

“Oh, uh. Yeah, everything’s fine,” Crowley gulped, shifting his grip on the incubator box under his left arm. “Let’s go in?”

Aziraphale’s brows raised again but he didn’t argue that he could quite obviously tell that everything was not fine in the demon’s world, instead simply unlocking the shop door and holding it open for Crowley to enter first. It hadn’t escaped the angel’s notice that the demon was carrying something that was decidedly not his gardening tools or that he was deflecting from answering the question about his apprenticeship, but he trusted Crowley would explain what he was up to in due time. Aziraphale followed him in and settled on the opposite side of the backroom couch from where the redhead had seated himself and waited patiently.

“So, um. Right,” Crowley stalled, fidgeting with the odd-looking box on the coffee table.

“Crowley, my dear, you’re only concerning me further with this hedging and hem-hawing. Are you sure everything is alright?”

The ginger sighed and steeled himself, trying to quiet his nerves. “I um. I did go to work this morning, Angel, and everything _is_ fine in that regard, so I’m sorry for worrying you,” the demon started. “But um. I ran across something really sad and I just couldn’t get it out of my brain and I definitely couldn’t just _leave_ it there and then I did something stupid and told Alban I had to leave for a family emergency but I finished my assignment first, I swear! I just used a miracle to do it instead of staying to do it by hand…”

Aziraphale blinked at his partner’s anxious ramble and tried diligently to keep up. “Alright, so everything is okay, you found something sad and it upset you, so you used a miracle to finish your work and came home,” he recapped, satisfied when Crowley nodded to confirm he was correct. “Do you want to talk about what upset you so much, love?”

Crowley groaned and face-planted into Aziraphale’s plush chest, speaking into the angel’s soft strength. “I found a duck’s nest that a mink had got into. The… the mother duck was dead and the mink had eaten all the eggs.” The demon sighed and inhaled the parchment and fresh rain smell of his angel, letting it calm him a little before he added, “Or so I thought. I saw the little bastard rummaging around in the nest so I transformed and chomped him down in one bite just cuz, ya know? And then I looked through the nest and found that he hadn’t gotten to one of the eggs and I felt it out and the little ducky inside was still alive… I couldn’t just leave it there, knowing it wouldn’t survive even without taking predators into consideration. Mum was gone and it wouldn’t hatch without someone to brood it, and it was such a unique color egg to boot… I miracled up an incubator and brought it home…”

Aziraphale was well used to Crowley’s need for physical affection by this point and automatically hugged the demon to his chest when Crowley flopped there, rubbing soothing patterns on his back while the ginger told his tale. When Crowley finally finished the angel pressed a tender kiss to his fiery locks and hugged him tightly. “Oh, my dear boy… that does sound quite rough,” he soothed the demon gently. “I’m very glad that you ate the little bugger, even with there being a survivor. And I take it the lucky little ducky is in the incubator box?”

“Mmhmm,” Crowley mumbled into the angel’s chest, wrapping his lanky arms around Aziraphale. “Well, kinda. It hasn’t hatched yet; s’just an egg. But it’s really pretty?”

“You’re making it rather difficult to find out, dearest,” Aziraphale chuckled, trying to dislodge the clinging demon from around his middle. Unfortunately that only made Crowley whine and squeeze him harder. Rolling his eyes at the demon’s antics, Aziraphale gave up trying to make Crowley get up and instead scooped the redhead into his lap and leaned forward to inspect the incubator with one hand while he supported the demon’s back with the other.

“Oh, look at the precious thing…” Aziraphale cooed upon seeing the small black egg. “You’re very right, my darling; it is very pretty. And very lucky that a certain ginger demon with a heart of gold came along and found them.”

He didn’t want to keep the incubator box open for very long for fear of dropping the temperature too much and harming the little tyke, so Aziraphale patted the box tenderly before sitting back on the couch and wrapping both arms around Crowley, still clinging to his middle with his face buried in his chest comfortably.

“So, you don’t mind that I brought it home?” the demon mumbled nervously, one golden eye peeking up at the angel’s face.

“Of course not, my love! I’m so very proud of you and I’m so excited to be a father with you, my sweet serpent,” Aziraphale reassured his partner.

“We _are_ going to be dads, aren’t we?” Crowley’s head popped up at last, the demon’s grin showing off just how excited he was at the prospect.

“And we’ll do a much better job with our child than we did with our godson…”

“Okay, but Warlock turned out just fine! And so did Adam, for that matter!”

Aziraphale let out a snort and giggled at Crowley’s insistence, the ginger devolving into a fit of giggles right along with him. The stress of the morning melted away for Crowley as they laughed together until Aziraphale had the hiccups and Crowley’s pale cheeks were ruddy and flushed. The demon finally loosened his constrictor hold on the angel and sat up, pressing a tender kiss to Aziraphale’s cheek before sliding off his lap and standing up to stretch. The tall ginger froze halfway through popping his flexible spine back into alignment.

“We have so much to do, Angel!” he exclaimed, golden eyes widened with the start of anxiety again. “I dunno anything about ducks or how to raise them or-or-or how to be a dad and - **_ngk_** …” The demon trailed off into a soft purr as Aziraphale stood and silenced him with a gentle kiss.

“Hush, sweetheart. I’ve got some books here on duck husbandry, I’m sure, and what we can’t learn there, the internet can help us with,” the blond said with a confident smile. “We’ll be just fine, Crowley.”

If Crowley were a _smidge_ more demonic he might have been annoyed by how thoroughly and how easily Aziraphale could melt him with the simplest affection, but as it was, he found he rather didn’t care about appearances anymore and simply reveled in the tenderness between he and his angelic partner. He hugged Aziraphale again and agreed.

“You’re right, Angel. I have faith in us.”

Aziraphale’s smile lit up the whole backroom. “Me too, dearheart. Now, let’s get to work…”

*******

Within an hour both celestial beings had learned far more about ducks than either had ever imagined needing (or wanting) to know and Crowley’s anxiety had multiplied exponentially.

“Aziraphale, how can you possibly believe we can do this? Just _look_ at all this information; there’s tons of it!” The lanky redhead gestured wildly around at the pile of papers his partner had printed off the internet, anxiety causing tight wrinkles to appear around his eyes. “Just look at this one! It says here that it’s illegal in the UK to take a wild bird’s egg!” he whined.

Aziraphale rolled his eyes behind Crowley’s back and took a steadying breath before he answered his excitable partner. “Unless the bird was disabled or endangered by action not of one’s own making and one intends to rehabilitate and release the bird once it’s able to survive on its own,” the angel finished, pointing out the relevant subsection of the Act over Crowley’s shoulder. “And that’s just what we intend to do.”

“We are **NOT** releasing our _child_ , Angel!”

“Oh, for Somebody’s sake, Crowley… of course we aren’t _releasing_ our child,” Aziraphale sighed in exasperation. “But we aren’t going to keep it imprisoned either and by that definition we _will_ be releasing the bird, and it is entirely true that the little dear was ‘disabled’ when it was orphaned while still unhatched due to the likelihood of its mortality without proper brooding, thereby, we are acting entirely within the bounds of the law under the Protection of Birds Act of 1954. No lying to the humans, no fraud, and no repercussions on your apprenticeship, since I know that is what is really the underlying cause of at least most of your current anxiety, my dear.”

One would think after a few thousand-odd years of knowing each other and discovering the intricacies and quirks that each possessed that Crowley would no longer be surprised by Aziraphale’s streak of ‘Utter Bastard’ when it surfaced, and yet - once again - Crowley found himself staring in awe at his angel’s profoundly bastardly logistical somersaults. The poor demon’s brain seemed to have short-circuited by being so thoroughly _seen_ , causing Crowley to stare blankly at his best friend for several long moments while it attempted to reboot. When at last it did Crowley was still at a loss for words and so simply wrapped his arms around Aziraphale’s soft middle and inhaled his calming scent.

“It’s going to be alright, my love,” the angel murmured against the bright auburn hair tucked under his chin. “We’ve raised an Antichrist together; how much harder could a single duckling be?”

Crowley snorted a laugh at his teasing and raised his head with a grin. “You say that like we didn’t just give a perfectly normal child the weirdest, most screwed-up childhood in history,” he teased right back, pressing a tender kiss to the angel’s cheek.

“Hush, you. Don’t spoil my moment.” Aziraphale’s eyes were bright with mischief.

“Oh, my apologies, Principality,” the demon snarked playfully. With a deep sigh he settled his long limbs on the couch once more and pulled a stack of information across the coffee table to read. Aziraphale settled himself in his favorite chair and opened the book on duck husbandry he had had tucked away in the depths of the shop and a companionable silence fell between the celestial beings for nearly a half hour.

“Oh. Huh. According to this, I think the egg I found is actually an American breed,” the demon said. “This says that they’re called Cayuga Ducks because they originated from the Cayuga lake region of New York, and they’re frequently used as ornamental birds because of their being almost mute as adults and they tend to stay close to wherever home is.”

“Fascinating…” Aziraphale mused as he listened to Crowley’s findings. After a moment his brows knit curiously. “But how can you be sure of the breed, my dear? I would imagine, even with our egg’s distinctive coloration, it would be rather difficult to identify a breed before it hatches, no?”

Crowley shook his head and sat up to hand Aziraphale the pages he had been reading and highlighting important bits of. “Huh-uh. From what I’ve read, the Cayuga’s eggs are completely black or charcoal grey and it’s a distinctive trait to that breed specifically. Here, see.”

The blond took the pages from the demon and perused them quickly. “Oh, I see! Well, that’s good news then! We have a direction to research in now!” he wiggled excitedly. “Wonderful, my love!”

The redhead flushed and looked intently at his own feet for a moment while Aziraphale praised him, then busied himself sorting through more of the papers the angel had printed out looking for anything else on the Cayuga duck. It wasn’t long before Crowley found something else that made him frown, however.

“You’re frowning again, darling. Why?”

“A couple different articles mention Cayuga ducks brood their young far more often than most other breeds of duck, so I followed the rabbit hole down some forums on the internet from there… duck breeders and showers mostly, and a few veterinarians. Seems most experts are in agreement that this particular breed of duck has a much lower mortality rate when the eggs are brooded by a hen rather than an incubator, but nobody is quite sure why though. Just that it seems to be a Thing for Cayuga ducks…”

“Oh, I see. How fascinating!” Aziraphale wiggled in his chair with this new information.

“Yes, yes; it’s all just _ducky_ , Angel,” Crowley quipped, rolling his eyes. “Except for the part where we don’t have a hen to brood our egg.”

Aziraphale tried and almost succeeded in stifling a snort at his partner’s fowl pun. “Very clever, dear. I think you’re jumping the proverbial gun just a tad though, Crowley. It only says it _lowers_ the mortality rate, not that the egg has no chance at all, yes?” He waited for Crowley to nod his assent before carrying on. “Then, you see? It will be just fine, I’m certain, my love. Risky, yes, but one could say that about most things that are worth doing, no?”

Crowley pursed his lips and fixed the (in his highly-qualified opinion) overly-optimistic angel with a glare that clearly conveyed his skepticism on the matter. For his part the angel in question would not be deterred from his optimism or his excitement so easily and simply smiled back until the demon gave in with the heaviest of sighs and went back to reading with a disgruntled huff.

“Oh, do buck up, Crowley. You’re going to give yourself wrinkles if you keep frowning like that,” Aziraphale tutted, unable to stop himself from shooting his partner a victorious smirk.

“... go to Heaven, Angel,” Crowley shot back, smirking out of the corner of his mouth. He carefully adjusted the temperature and humidity of the incubator according to the research he had highlighted and sat back to continue reading, occasionally tossing both information and playful jabs back and forth with the blond opposite him.

Another hour or so passed before Aziraphale broke the relative silence between them this time.

“You know, my dear… I had a thought,” he mused slowly, sipping his cocoa thoughtfully.

“No! Not _you_ , Angel!”

The angel’s lips pursed and his blue eyes narrowed at the sarcastic jab from his demonic partner who merely shot him a playful cheesy grin over his mobile phone and waited for Aziraphale to continue on.

“Oh, ha ha, you fiend. No, I was thinking we should discuss names for our little duckling. You know, so we’re ready for when they hatch! We can’t very well just call them ‘ducky’ until we figure it out,” he added with a distasteful grimace.

Crowley reeled in his gangly limbs from their errant sprawl across the settee and sat up, looking over at Aziraphale with interest. “Well, that’s true. But how are we supposed to pick a name if we don’t know what they are yet?” he asked, raising one auburn brow. Did ducks care about things like gender identity and expression the way humans did? Crowley was inclined to think not from all the years he had watched the little buggers in various parks, ponds, and waterways over the millennia, but he supposed one never could be _sure_ of someone else’s gender identity without asking or being told, right? But how was he supposed to do that with a duck?!

“Dearest.” Aziraphale’s soft, strong fingers closed around Crowley’s own, bringing the demon’s racing thoughts to a screeching halt and instantly restoring a measure of calm to his scattered mind. “Darling, you look like you were doing that ‘screeching off into the void’ thing, as you call it,” the blond smiled at his partner, his thumb gently stroking over Crowley’s. “Talk to me?”

“I uh… I kinda got lost on the ducky… gender… name… thing?” Crowley struggled to spit out. Even once he managed to find all the words he was looking for the explanation still ended up sounding like more of a question than anything else.

“Hmm, I see. Well, would you like to know what I think, my love?” Aziraphale asked, continuing when Crowley nodded vigorously. “I think we should both make a list of our favorite names and narrow down a list we can both agree on from those, so then when our little one hatches we have names of either gender ready to go. How does that sound, Crowley?”

A slow smile spread across the demon’s face as he listened to Aziraphale’s solution. Crowley brought their joined hands up to his lips and placed a sweet kiss on the angel’s knuckles before answering. “It sounds like once again you’ve stopped a panic attack before it got started, Angel. I’ll grab some notepads for us if you’ll put on some fresh tea?” Crowley offered with a soft smile.

If the sweet kiss to his hand hadn’t done it, the soft, vulnerable smile Crowley offered him now would have melted Aziraphale clean into a puddle of happy, marshmallowy angel-goo. “You know I can’t say no to those eyes,” he huffed playfully, kissing Crowley’s forehead as he stood up to go make their tea.

“Never could,” Crowley quipped. He slipped over to Aziraphale’s desk and rooted through the chaos there until he emerged with a pair of writing pads, two pens, and a couple of hefty magazines for them both to write on as well. The ginger settled back into his favorite spot on the settee with his notepad and drew his knees up far further than any knees should reasonably be expected to bend before beginning to scribble down names. Aziraphale smiled and joined him a few minutes later with two fresh mugs of tea, seating himself next to Crowley on the sofa rather than his customary chair this time. With the timing of long-time partners, no sooner was Aziraphale seated than Crowley’s long legs were unfolded and across the angel’s lap with Aziraphale’s notepad resting just above Crowley’s knees while he wrote down his own list of potential ducky names.

In no time at all it seemed, both immortal beings had written, re-written, scratched out, and corrected their initial list of possible names and were ready to compare with each other.

“Oh you first,” Crowley insisted, suddenly shy.

“Alright then,” Aziraphale said with a happy wiggle. “I drew names from some of my favorite books… yes, I know you’re _so shocked_ , dear,” he rolled his eyes affectionately, correctly anticipating his partner’s sarcastic quip before the demon had even opened his mouth, “but let me know if anything jumps out at you.” Crowley nodded and Aziraphale began listing off names.

“William or Will, after Shakespeare… we do so enjoy his works and he was such an interesting friend. I know you were not really a fan of my friendship with him at the time, but I thought of Oscar too,” he paused, looking over at Crowley a little nervously.

“Wilde? I mean, I didn’t really have anything against the man, Angel…” Crowley admitted, his cheeks coloring a fetching pink. “Well, unless you count the fact that he was getting your attention and I wasn’t.”

Aziraphale’s eyes widened as if he had just been given the most important bit of lost knowledge in the entire world. “You… _that’s_ why you didn’t like Oscar? Crowley… you… you were… **jealous**?” he sputtered.

Crowley’s face, ears, and upper chest completed their coloration to a deep red in the span of 1.2 seconds at Aziraphale’s realization. He cleared his throat and nodded, seriously weighing the pros and cons of changing form and snaking off somewhere else for a while. “Of _course_ that’s why I didn’t like him, Aziraphale! It was in the middle of our ‘holy water fight’ and we still weren’t speaking! Did you honestly think I just slept the whole eighty years away before the Blitz? Of course not! I checked on you every few months or so to make sure you weren’t getting into too much trouble, but I went to sleep for a solid decade when I saw you were getting on so well with Wilde and his circle because…” Crowley fumbled for words, his hands waving absently as if to pluck the phrase he was searching for from thin air. His voice was quiet and a little bit defeated when he finally continued. “Because it hurt to see you so happy with someone who had known you for so short a time and who would ultimately leave you in a not-so-distant-to-us time… but who would still have hurt you less than I had in doing so.”

The words were heavy and hung in the air between them for long moments before Aziraphale simply wrapped Crowley’s thin torso in his strong arms and cradled him to his chest in a long embrace they both needed. Crowley held onto his angel while neither of them mentioned the tears staining Aziraphale’s soft jacket and Aziraphale’s hands stroked his demon’s long back while they both processed the emotions of Crowley’s confession. When Crowley finally pulled back and sat up he kissed Aziraphale tenderly, letting their foreheads rest together with a smile when the kiss broke.

“I know that’s not true, you know, Angel. Now, I mean,” he said softly, letting his lips tickle Aziraphale’s nose and making the blond giggle. 

Aziraphale stole another sweet kiss from the demon with a smile. “I’m glad, my love. And I am so sorry that I hurt you so much for so very long. Yes, I _know_ we’ve talked about it and we’ve moved past it,” he playfully covered Crowley’s mouth with his hand when the demon opened it to say exactly that.

Just for spite Crowley licked a long, slobbery stripe up the middle of the angel’s palm, making Aziraphale squeal in horrified peals of laughter and frantically wipe his hand on Crowley’s jeans.

“Oh you, foul fiend! Why are you like this?!”

Crowley guffawed and flicked his snake tongue cheekily at his partner. “Demon, remember?” 

Aziraphale tried to frown and fix his misbehaving demon of a partner with a stern blue-eyed glare, he really did. But the snake tongue was just too darn adorable and it got him every time. “Yes, but you’re _my_ demon, love,” he huffed playfully and gave Crowley a flirtatious grin.

Color flushed across Crowley’s features again. “Uh. Yu **P**. Sure am. Uh-huh.” He nodded, his eyes flicking over to the egg in its incubator on the coffee table for a moment. “But uh, Angel?”

“Yes, dear?”

“Mmmaybe not in front of the kid?”

“Oh, good lord…”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to all of our readers, cheerleaders, and supporters from the bottom of our angelic and demonic little hearts! Do please join us on January 9th for Chapter 3!
> 
> From WriteItOtt - Please give my lovely, TALENTED co-conspirator and illustrator Yvesriba some extra kudos for the truly amazing artwork they have created for this project. Creating with them has been such a joy and such a blessing that I don't think this demon even knows the words to express it properly. I am so thankful we met and that I have a friend like you to create things like this with! Thank you <3
> 
> From Yvesriba - working with WriteItOtt has been so much fun and we are just getting started. We share a brain cell in that I will get an idea at the same time they do. Like pretty much EVERY TIME we brainstorm this happens. So we know we are on the right track, or maybe it's the wrong track, but we are going there together. Thank you my demon writing partner, from your angelic artist.


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